1. Technical Field
Example embodiments of the present invention relate in general to an electronic device, a method of manufacturing the same, and a touch panel including the device, and more specifically to an electronic device including metal oxide nanostructures vertically aligned in intersection regions between electrodes disposed in a crossbar formation, a method of manufacturing the device, and a touch panel including the device.
2. Related Art
A vast amount of research has been conducted into new electronic devices using nanostructures of materials. Nanostructures with a size of several tens of nm, such as quantum dots, nanoparticles, nanorods, nanotubes, quantum wells, and nano-composites, exhibit completely different optical, electrical, magnetic, and genetic properties from a conventional thin layer or bulk material due to electron confinement. Research into technology for increasing operating efficiency of a device at low power using characteristics of the nanostructures has progressed.
However, since 1-dimensional nanostructures should be separately controlled to manufacture devices including the nanostructures, when the devices including the nanostructures are manufactured using conventional semiconductor process, not only is it difficult to mass produce the devices but they may be prone to malfunction and contamination.
Furthermore, it is not easy to manufacture nanostructures with uniform electrical properties by equalizing the length of the respective nanostructures, and it is difficult to precisely align the nanostructures in desired regions.
Meanwhile, a touch panel is typically installed in a display device, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a light crystal display (LCD), and used as an information input unit. The touch panel may be an input apparatus in which a selection menu is displayed on a display so that a user can simply drive the display apparatus.
It is known that, among various types of touch panels, a resistive-type touch panel is more advantageous than other types of touch panels in terms of thickness, size, weight, and power consumption.
In general, a resistive-type touch panel may include an upper substrate and a lower substrate disposed opposite each other, a transparent conductive layer may be coated on the upper and lower substrates, and electrodes may be formed at both ends of the transparent conductive layer. A dot spacer may be formed on the lower substrate to insulate the transparent conductive layer formed on the upper and lower substrates, and the upper and lower substrates may be encapsulated using a bond or an adhesive film.
Accordingly, when the upper substrate of the touch panel is pushed by a user's fingers or a tool, the upper and lower substrates may be brought into contact with each other, and a position of contact between the upper and lower substrates may be detected so that the touch panel can function as an input apparatus.
However, in a conventional resistive-type touch panel, when at least two points are simultaneously touched (i.e., when a multi-touch occurs), an electrical short occurs between the at least two points so that the touched points cannot be calculated. Also, an additional power source is required to put upper and lower substrates in an equipotential state.